The Sky Cries
by Ximatrii
Summary: This is the fifth installation of these short Mara Jade fics. Please R & R!!


The Sky Cries

By Mara Jade

                This is the fifth installation of these short Mara Jade fics.  I've been thinking of putting them all together, but I figure if you want to read them, just go to my name and look 'em up, right?  Anyways, this one doesn't have an actual time, like the majority of my other ones, except that it's after Last Command and before Specter of the Past.  Does that help?  K, here's the story:  

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                I can feel as well as see and hear the thunderstorm brewing just here, near my apartment.  It's been raining for a few hours, and when it's not raining, all the water is in these heavy mists that hang around and thoroughly soak each and every being who walks through them.

                I was asleep earlier, at a rather early time for me, 2200 standard hours, and I just woke up.  I don't remember having a dream or nightmare or whatnot, but what happened afterwards can definitely be classified as a nightmare.  It was almost like I could hear Master.

                Like he was inside my head once again.

                But that's not it.  Oh, no, that's not it.

                He started out telling me that I was a complete failure, as he did in many of my nightmares, the ones I got right after he died.  Then he commanded me to fulfill his last command.

                YOU WILL KILL LUKE SKYWALKER!

                I laughed and told him that although he had no control over me, I had already killed Luke.  Luuke, I mean.  But the Jedi Skywalker nonetheless.

                I NEVER HAD CONTROL OVER YOU.

                I angrily told him, Of course you did!  If you hadn't, I never would have killed all those people, their only crime being on the wrong end of your scepter.  I never would have wasted years trying to kill Skywalker!

                He told me to think about it.  If he'd have truly been controlling me, I would have killed Luke.

                He never accepted less than my best.

                I tried to retort that he'd always lied to me in life, what would stop him in death, but he was gone.  Leaving me alone with my thoughts.

                And alone I was.  Any intelligent person would be inside their nice warm homes by now, cuddled up with a pet nek or the person they loved.  I know.

                But I'll never be there.  I'll always be alone, now even more so.

                Certainly even Luke will leave me once he knows the truth.

                I killed those people.

                I see it clearly now.  He never truly controlled me.  he ordered me to kill someone, and I leapt to obey.  If he had controlled me, I would have certainly killed Luke, without a second thought.

                How could I have been such a Sith-spawned fool not to have seen it earlier?  I killed them.  Me, not the Emperor.  Me.  Me.

                My only true friend, Luke, always believed there is good in everything.  His father, for example, and me.  surely he wouldn't be able to think so now.

                And Kaarde.  The first man to give me a chance, and even a second chance, after he learned who I was.  If he knew I, myself, I killed them, on my own…

                I don't want to think about it.  Even now I can feel the teardrops—or just raindrops—on my face.  But I shouldn't cry.  I can't.  It wouldn't do for anyone to see me cry.  My reputation would be tarnished.

                Besides, the sky cries for me, instead.  That way I don't have to.

                I'm standing out here, in the middle of a walkpath, near but far away, so it seems, from warm dry tapcafé's and bars.  I feel detached from the entire world and there's nothing I can do about it.

                There's nothing I can do, because I've already done it.  The damage has been done.

                I'm not even sure Skywalker would ever want to see me, or even hear my name.  And Kaarde certainly wouldn't take me back.  Business would drop for him if clients knew I'd killed hundreds on my own accord, some of whom they could have been related to.  And Horn, Corran Horn, who'd called me a friend, he would hate me as well.

                It's not the prospect of them hating me that hurts, it's the fact I'd be alone.  Completely, totally, utterly alone.

                I glance up.  The rain doesn't show any sign of letting up.

                My sky still cries for me, past, present, and my bleak future.


End file.
